Cabaret

Tom Selleck & The Cast of Blue Bloods, Carol Burnett, Fran Drescher, Linda Lavin and More To Celebrate Nicolas King’s New Album

Published

2 years ago

April 17, 2021

CLUB44 RECORDS will celebrate the new Nicolas King album Act One: Celebrating 25 Years of Recordings on Wednesday, April 28 at 8:00 PM Eastern with an all-star online release party event. Nicolas will perform several songs with Mike Renzi at the piano. His friends will drop in to congratulate him, including Tom Selleck & the cast of “Blue Bloods,” Angela Bacari, Carol Burnett, Fran Drescher, Charles Calello, Max von Essen, Michael Feinstein, Connie Francis, Ernie Haas, Clint Holmes, Richard Jay-Alexander, Linda Lavin, Norm Lewis, Jane Monheit, Christine Pedi, Linda Purl, Mark Sendroff, Billy Stritch, and Veronica Swift, along with special surprise guests. The show will be broadcast live on Nicolas’ YouTube channel, where it will be archived after the event. Tune in on YouTube HERE.

Act One: Celebrating 25 Years of Recordings, which was released earlier this year, looks back with a lively history of King’s already multi-decade career. While focusing on his suave vocals, and showcasing both eternal standards and newer songs, the album boasts guest appearances from stage and screen luminaries Liza Minnelli, Tom Selleck, Jane Monheit, and Norm Lewis. The recording also features major musical contributions from two-time Grammy Award nominee Mike Renzi (renowned pianist and music director for Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, and Mel Tormé) and Charles Calello (arranger and producer for Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, and Ray Charles). Music legend Connie Francis provides liner notes. The album’s leading single is “What a Wonderful World,” a duet with celebrated Broadway leading man Norm Lewis. The label is planning an all-new Nicolas King album to be released in 2022.

“I started compiling Act One merely so that I had something fun to sell at concerts,” says Nicolas. “But once the pandemic hit, I found myself with loads of free time and began uncovering so many recordings from the past 25 years. This tiny project ballooned into something much bigger than I anticipated, but it turned into an opportunity to look back at what brought me to this point. I think of this album as the ending of my childhood chapter and a wonderful setup to the next! I thank all my musical guests for their contributions, but I’m especially grateful to musical titans Mike Renzi and Charles Calello. They both have extraordinary legacies, and I am humbled to be added to the list of iconic artists they’ve collaborated with.”

Act One: Celebrating 25 Years of Recordings is a compilation of sparkling new studio tracks, selections from his previous solo albums, and vintage archival gems from early in his career. The collection opens with a spoken live introduction by Liza Minnelli, a memento from the decade Nicolas toured the world with her. The new selections include a lushly orchestrated version of “But Beautiful,” performed with jazz singer Jane Monheit. “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” a charming duet with Tom Selleck, was taped onstage when they appeared together in the Broadway play A Thousand Clowns when Nicolas was just 10 years old.

“I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together” – the inimitable TV theme to “The Carol Burnett Show” – is heard in a medley with “My Shining Hour.” The pairing is dedicated to Ms. Burnett and her late daughter Carrie Hamilton, whom Nicolas worked with on the Broadway play Hollywood Arms. Other highlights include a loose, jazzy rendition of the Four Seasons standard “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and a pensive interpretation of the Irving Berlin classic “How Deep Is the Ocean,” elegantly accompanied only by Alan Bernstein’s bass. Nicolas’s take on the beloved “Sesame Street” favorite “Sing” swings with the razzle dazzle of a driving big band arrangement. He also makes sure to present new songs written in the classic style, including “Looks Like They’re in Love” (Alex Rybeck & Bob Levy) and “The Only One” (Tracy Stark).

The storied entertainment anthem “There’s No Business Like Show Business” provides a fitting coda to the album. The track, merging a delightful early recording with a brand-new studio cut, showcases both his roots as a young budding showman and his present-day vocal prowess, musical intelligence, and ebullient verve.

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Suzanna Bowling

Suzanna, co-owns and publishes the newspaper Times Square Chronicles or T2C. At one point a working actress, she has performed in numerous productions in film, TV, cabaret, opera and theatre. She has performed at The New Orleans Jazz festival, The United Nations and Carnegie Hall. She has a screenplay and a TV show in the works, which she developed with her mentor and friend the late Arthur Herzog. She is a proud member of the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle and was a nominator. Email: suzanna@t2conline.com

Cabaret

Storm Large Brings The Sexual Heat Along With Powerhouse Vocals To 54 Below

Published

9 hours ago

March 22, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

Doris Day’s “Que Sera, Que Sera, takes on a hint of sexual subversive overtone as flower child Storm Large makes her way through the audience at 54 Below handing out possies.

If you do not know who Storm Large is, she is a musician, actor, playwright and author, who shot to national prominence in 2006 as a finalist on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova. Large currently performs nationally with her own band, and tours internationally with the Portland-based band Pink Martini. Large also appeared on America’s Got Talent on June 14, 2021, performing a cover of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” which is when I became obsessed.

Large is raw, real, human, and oh so female, and her new show has her explaining her life and how she empathize with all of us during being locked down. Her take on Jay Livingston and Ray Evans “Crazy Train” took on a deeper and more profound epiphany.

Lauper’s and Large’s ode to self-gratification, brought back the 80’s “She Bop“. Large talks between the numbers and we learn how Ms. Large dealt with not performing, in Prince’s “Nothing Compares To You“.

You will never think of Grease’s “Hopelessly Devoted to You” in the same way again after the “Carrie: version Storm maps out. You definitely get a glimpse of the demons that she battles or rather plays with.

Connecting so strongly to lyric and having a range that is unbelievable, Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Shovels & Rope’s “After The Storm” and The Kinks “Strangers” told of heartbreak, longing, loss as Storm played the drums and ukulele. She is multi-talented and it is mind boggling how she is not more nationally and internationally beloved.

A lot of the audience knew Storm’s “8 Mile Wide” from her hit one-woman show Crazy Enough. This song is a female empowerment ode of being who she is and she does not apologize. Despite the song being about her anatomy, this was her father’s favorite song. She sang it to him before he died.

The Hollies “Air That I Breathe” and a song by Storm and her amazing musical director James Beaton, “Angels in The Gas Station” were dedicated to her father. Beaton is also who does Storm’s arrangements including the fabulous “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, that sadly she did not grace us with,

Playing in her band are musicians that are all stellar in the own rights with Matt Brown on Bass, Scott Weddle on Guitar and Greg Uklund on Drums.

You can catch Storm Large: Loving Storm, tonight at 54 Below and I highly recommend you do. If you have never experienced this super nova you will be glad you did.

Cabaret

Ken Fallin’s Broadway: New York Pops and Marvelous Marilyn Maye

Published

11 hours ago

March 22, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

“The astonishing Marilyn Maye sings with the magnificent New York Pops led by Maestro Steve Reineke this Friday evening, March 24th at Carnegie Hall. They are remarkable talents and remarkable people.

Kenny & Marilyn Maye penthouse

Cabaret legend Marilyn Maye takes the stage with The New York Pops for a program of standards and musical theater classics that make clear why she’s been celebrated as one of America’s greatest jazz singers for more than 50 years. Hear favorites by composers who include Porter, Lerner and Loewe, Loesser, and Sondheim, as well as Maye’s special version of “Too Late Now,” which was selected by the Smithsonian Institution for its permanent collection of 20th-century recordings.

Cabaret

My View: The Only Thing Missing Was A Latte ( with extra foam) Marcy & Zina Party at 54 Below

Published

1 week ago

March 15, 2023

Stephen Sorokoff

The only thing missing at last night’s party for Marcy and Zina was a Latte choice in the beverage section on the menu at 54 Below (with extra foam). The show, titled Make Your Own Party: The Songs of Goldrich and Heisler was conceived by Scott Coulter and performed by a cast of five. It celebrated over three decades of quirky, heartfelt and utterly contemporary romantic comedy songs written by Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich.

From “Taylor the Latte Boy” to under appreciated altos we were introduced to the cast of characters that inspired these inseparable, irreverent friends to write over three hundred and counting musical love letters to the city, the theatre, and the people who make them sing. The evening was filled with the heart felt stories that these two award winning women have created and was performed by a first rate cast of Broadway super singers. The lyrics, the music, the luscious harmonies…it was the best party of music I’ve ever been invited to.

The Performers: Jill Abramowitz, Cole Burden, Alex Getlin, Joe Kinosian, Kelli Rabke, and Austin Rivers.

Joe Kinosian,piano, Matt Scharfglass, bass

Marcy & Zina have been performing and writing together since 1992. Their critically acclaimed romantic comedy songs have been featured in venues across the world, recorded by artists across many genres, and appear in numerous folios and collected works. Their Off-Broadway musical Dear Edwina earned them a Drama Desk nomination, and other works have been produced by regional powerhouses such as Paper Mill playhouse, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Goodspeed, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Their shows include Ever After, JUnie B Jones, and The Great American Musical, based on the bestselling book by auther/director Julie Andrews.